


i want to tell you everything

by sevensevan



Series: from dawn [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/M, and if you don't agree i'll fight you, bc these three are best friends in another life, brief angst, fluff kind of, oliver is hopeless and in love, smoaking billionaires brotp, this isn't betaed i'm sorry, this one ends happily i promise, tw for mention/brief discussion of emotionally manipulative/abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9633416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevensevan/pseuds/sevensevan
Summary: On the first day of kindergarten, Oliver turns to Tommy, points out a girl standing in the crowd of children, and says, "See that girl? I'm going to marry her." Or, the Olicity childhood AU that no one asked for but I wrote anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. I just...do not know. Unbeta'ed because I don't have a beta reader. Any volunteers would be welcome. I write one thing every six months so it wouldn't be much work.
> 
> This was pretty heavily inspired by a childhood AU Vauseman fic I read over on ffnet a long time ago; I can't remember the title but if anyone thinks they know what I'm talking about please tell me, I'd love to find it again.
> 
> Title from This Town by Niall Horan, because even though I was never a 1D fan (I'm gay but not that gay), I've been unashamedly jamming to it for a while now.
> 
> Enjoy.

There are very few truths that can be considered universal. Most rules are based on circumstance, on people, on the fickle concepts that humans find comfort in; things like eternity and life after death. But if there were to be a singular idea that could be considered undeniable, inescapable, inevitable, it would be that Oliver Queen, unconditionally and without any question, loves Felicity Smoak.

Of course, like most things in life, it isn’t quite that simple. Oliver loves Felicity far, far too early; on the first day of kindergarten, when his parents drop him off at the public school building (believing a normal childhood will be good for him), he nudges his best friend, Tommy, points out the brunette head bobbing through the crowd of eager five-year-olds, and whispers to the other boy, “See that girl? I’m going to marry her.”

Tommy laughs at him then. But Oliver? Oliver is more serious than he’s ever been in his short life. So he grabs his friend by the arm, marches them both over to the tiny girl, and sticks out his hand the way he’s seen his father do a thousand times.

“Hi,” he greets her confidently. “I’m Ollie Queen.” She shakes his hand awkwardly and babbles some incoherent nonsense about how excited she is. Somewhere in the breathless babble, he learns that her name is Felicity Smoak, and Oliver? Well, Oliver is already gone. Too far gone, utterly captivated by this girl and her bouncing brunette curls and her loud, fast voice and her complete, unadulterated _enthusiasm_.

Somewhere in the background, Donna Smoak is taking photos of her baby girl while crying uncontrollably. Oliver ends up in almost all of the photos, and Tommy in most of them, and although they don’t yet know it, all three of them will look at the photos with fondness for the rest of their lives.

But that is all yet to come, and it is still Oliver, Tommy, and Felicity’s first day of kindergarten, and there is still a long way to go before Oliver can work up the nerve to look Felicity in the eye and tell her the truth.

  


XxX

  


It becomes clear by the beginning of third grade that Felicity is far more intelligent than Oliver or Tommy could ever hope to be. In any other friendship, that could cause jealousy, friction, maybe even drive a wedge between the three children.

Not in this one.

Oliver and Tommy cheer her on from the sidelines as Felicity skips first and second grade math entirely, is placed in an advanced readers’ program, and considerably outstrips them in every conceivable subject, with the exception of gym class. They’re not even ten years old yet, but already, the two boys are fiercely protective of their brilliant, irrepressible best friend.

At nine years old, the three of them are utterly inseparable. Nothing can pull them apart; not Moira’s vaguely disapproving glances at Donna and her subtle hints that perhaps Felicity is not the best choice for Oliver and Tommy’s devotion; not Felicity’s incredible intelligence; not even the other children they befriend.

At nine years old, Oliver is sure of many things. He’s sure of his family, his friends, his future (although he doesn’t know what it will be yet, he is certain it will be good); he’s sure that the unborn little sister his mother is carrying will be the best thing to happen to his life since Felicity. But most of all, he is sure that he is in love with Felicity Smoak, beyond all hope of return. And if he’s being honest, he really doesn’t mind.

  


XxX

  


They’re thirteen when Felicity walks home crying.

It’s their first day of middle school, and while Tommy and Oliver have almost all of their classes together, Felicity is so far ahead of them both that they only get to see her at lunch time. Which makes Oliver inordinately unhappy, but he’s learning to disguise his abnormal affection for his friend. The adoring glances that last more than a few seconds too long; the complete calm and quiet joy that come across his features around her; the seemingly constant need to be touching her somehow; all of his somewhat more-than-friendly actions are garnering significantly more notice, now that they’re a little older. And Oliver is learning how to be less obvious, to avoid staring and touching and treat her like a friend, just a friend; he’s learning how to look at her like a person and not his entire universe. It feels wrong, training himself out of outwardly loving her. But he does so anyway, because he’s scared. He’s scared of what will happen when she finds out (because she will; he can’t lie to her, and one day she’ll notice him smiling at her like she hung the sun in the sky, and she’ll ask, and he won’t be able to tell her anything except the truth).

When Oliver and Tommy start the walk to the bus stop (they take the bus out to the mansion every day, while Felicity only takes it a few blocks down to the apartment she shares with her mother), chasing after their friend instead of waiting for her like they typically do, they both immediately realize that something is wrong.

She cries silently while they badger her, begging her to tell them what has happened. She refuses for a while, but no one can truly resist the combined forces of Oliver’s pout and Tommy’s wide, kind, dark eyes. Through her sobs, she tells them about the older boys in her algebra class. The way they made fun of her, the way they grabbed at her clothes and pushed her around until the teacher came in and half-heartedly told them off.

Felicity doesn’t notice the way Oliver’s face gets darker and darker as she speaks. She doesn’t notice the way his fists clench and unclench at his sides, tighter and tighter. She doesn’t notice how he practically growls when he asks for their names.

The next day, Oliver Queen gets in his first fight. He and Tommy team up against a group of much older boys, and while they don’t exactly come out on top, Oliver considers the bruises and scrapes on the bullies to be a satisfactory consolation prize.

Moira lectures them both (yelling isn’t exactly her style). Felicity yells at them, instead. Tommy half-heartedly apologizes eventually, but Oliver refuses to do even that. Those boys hurt her, he insists. She’s his friend, and they hurt her. _Nobody hurts Oliver Queen’s friends_. Felicity tells him she doesn’t need him to defend her. Oliver tells her that it doesn’t matter if she needs him, he won’t let anyone hurt the people he cares about.

That’s the first time he almost tells her the truth. It nearly comes out in the middle of an argument, a stupid argument, really. Felicity is shouting, asking him why he would ever think starting a fight would be a good idea (because it was his idea; Tommy joined him, yes, but Oliver is the one who decides that whatever inefficient punishment the school will administer, if any, will not be enough), and he nearly tells her. He nearly shouts _because I love you_. But he catches himself, stumbles over his words, and mutters _because you’re my friend_.

It’s not what he wants to say. All the words that have been forming inside of him, everything that has been growing and building and spreading since he met Felicity, it’s all crawling up his throat, pushing at his tongue, trying to force its way through his lips. The warmth in his chest, the flame that starting somewhere behind his sternum and spread across his ribcage like wildfire, it’s burning, making its way up into his mouth.

But he’s scared. Oliver Queen isn’t scared of much, but losing Felicity is at the top of the very short list. And he’s still a child, really, at thirteen, and so is she, and while his love for his friend may be the thing he is most sure of in the world, it is also dangerous. It could burn down everything he’s built with her, and he can’t risk that.

So he swallows the flame and forces his tongue to mouth words that are only half-truths, and hates himself a little more every moment for not being brave enough to stop lying.

  


XxX

  


The summer before high school is the last time the three of them are truly children. It’s hot, hotter than any summer in Starling has been in years. The sun beats down on the cracked pavement of the city, turning streets and sidewalks into the walls of a concrete furnace. Oliver, Tommy, and Felicity effectively live in the pool behind the Merlyn mansion (as Malcolm has finally returned from his two-year bender across the nation, much of which is televised and printed in every sorry excuse for a tabloid in America). The trio has never been closer; despite Felicity’s rapidly growing introverted tendencies, Oliver’s devotion to the archery club he joined the summer before, and Tommy’s newfound friendship with Laurel Lance (which Oliver teases him endlessly for; his best friend’s crush is almost as severe as his own), they spend every waking minute together, and often sleep over in the empty rooms of the Merlyn mansion, filling the halls that have been eerily silent since Rebecca Meryln’s death with gleeful whooping and shouting and the sound of bare feet slapping against the polished wooden floors.

But as much as their lives seem flawlessly idyllic, change doesn’t stop for anyone. In June, Felicity makes Oliver help her dye her hair black and befriends an awkward boy named Cooper Seldon. For the Fourth of July, Oliver and Tommy attend their first (of what will soon be an unfathomable number) rager.

By mid-August, the heat is fading and the euphoria that permeated the earlier months is fading. The summer ends in a quiet sort of peace; Oliver, Tommy, and Felicity spend the last few days in the empty wings of the formers’ mansions, talking, laughing, simply being, basking in the final throes of a perfect summer.

And then high school begins, and everything starts to change.

  


XxX

  


Neither of them notice it at first. Felicity and Cooper are steadily dating by their second semester of freshman year, but she never brings him to her, Oliver, and Tommy’s weekends. They do still spend most weekends at a mansion, but it’s Oliver’s more often now, as Malcolm Merlyn is less fatherly and more unsettling these days, and Thea, at five and a half years old, wants nothing more than to spend time with her older brother and his best friends. They’re all taken by her mischievous grin and the way she bounces after Oliver, trailing behind him, chasing him as fast as her little legs will carry her (which quickly earns her the nickname Speedy). Before long, every weekend is spent at the Queen mansion, playing with Thea and making a horrific mess of the kitchen every Sunday morning (one would think that they would all become better cooks after the first three botched attempts at pancakes. One would be wrong).

It’s not perfect, though. The first time Felicity skips a weekend, both Tommy and Oliver are left in an almost shock-like state. The weekends are sacred by unspoken rule; the only time any of them had ever missed one was when Tommy’s appendix was removed. Even then, Oliver and Felicity had tried to sleep over in his hospital room, only leaving when the nurses practically dragged them out by their ears.

So when Felicity texts Oliver ( _texts_ , she doesn’t even call while she breaks a tradition that’s become sacrosanct to the three of them) after school on a Friday in February and tells him that she can’t make it (she doesn’t say it’s because of Cooper, and at least this time, Tommy nor Oliver suspects anything), it’s as if the very soul of the Queen mansion has vanished. Even Moira, who has long since given up on Oliver making high-society friends, has learned to accept and love Felicity (although the glares between Donna Smoak and Moira Queen remain the stuff of legend), and while she doesn’t say anything, she can feel how the halls of the house feel dead without the now black-haired girl’s cheerful babbling. There’s something about Felicity that’s almost glowing, as if she radiates warmth and love, and it’s become the life of the Queen family.

Robert asks his son at first, where Felicity is, if she’s alright. But when Oliver answers in a half-growl, half-yell, he stops asking. The weekend is empty for them all. They still try to have fun, of course, but Oliver stalks the halls with hunched shoulders, hands stuffed in his pockets and a glare on his face; Tommy lazes about moodily, instead of gleefully chasing Thea around the mansion as he normally does; and the youngest member of the Queen family and company keeps asking where her sister is and breaking out in tears when she receives the inevitable “Not here” as an answer.

Despite everyone’s shock, confusion, and emptiness, it is undoubtedly Oliver who has it the worst. He wanders the corridors and rooms of the mansions all weekend. He gets only a few hours of sleep. He barely speaks, other than unintelligible, meaningless grunts when someone asks him a question. He keeps turning corners and expecting to hear Felicity laughing, see her hands waving in excitement as she speaks too fast about something he doesn’t understand. He wakes up Sunday morning in a confused daze, sleep-deprived brain unable to wrap itself around the concept that Felicity _isn’t_ sleeping on his bedroom floor, glasses haphazardly tossed somewhere next to her (he’s stepped on and broken four pairs. She won’t let him pay for them. He does anyway, giving the money to Donna on the condition that she never mentions it to her daughter).

Oliver, for all his faults and complete lack of academic prowess, is not stupid. Stubborn and insensitive, perhaps, but not stupid. He quickly realizes that Felicity has become the source of all of his happiness. And that terrifies him. More than the time Thea had run into traffic and for a few heart-stopping seconds, he had thought she was going to die. More than when he had overheard his parents fighting and thought his family was about to split down the middle.

Oliver, at fifteen, has long since accepted that he will never _get over_ Felicity, and more recently accepted that he doesn’t particularly want to. He will love her for the rest of his life, and she will never love him in the same way. He’s okay with that.

He is not okay with relying on her for his happiness. Because that means he could lose her, and in doing so, lose his purpose, his meaning, his reason. And so Oliver decides that, while he will never be over Felicity, he needs a little less Felicity Smoak in his life (it’s the hardest decision he has ever made, and he can feel his heart fall from its place behind his ribcage even as he thinks the words).

The next week, when Felicity texts him on Thursday with a list of movies for the approaching weekend, he tells her it’s cancelled, and he goes to a party with Tommy instead.

  


XxX

  


None of them acknowledge the growing rift. Felicity spends more time with Cooper; Oliver spends more time drunk. Tommy thinks they’re both idiots and isn’t afraid to say so. That doesn’t change Oliver’s mind, though; by the end of freshman year, they’re lucky if they spend one weekend a month together. Felicity sits with Cooper and his friends during lunch. They’re an odd group, an awkward amalgamation of incredibly intelligent social rejects. Oliver, meanwhile (and, reluctantly, Tommy), sits with Laurel Lance, who is quickly becoming a friend to Tommy and something a little bit more to Oliver, much to the former’s dismay. Tommy isn’t bitter, exactly, but Oliver is in love with Felicity and always will be, and the two brothers in all but blood are both aware of it. The Merlyn heir isn’t as head-over-heels for Laurel as Oliver is for their childhood friend, but he’s getting there, and watching his best friend lead the girl he loves on is more than a little aggravating.

Everyone notices it. Donna Smoak watches as her bubbly, witty, _happy_ daughter sinks further and further into this sullen, angry, withdrawn persona she has created for herself. She watches as Felicity spends less time at home and less time at Oliver’s house, less time with the people who have loved her for her whole life, and more time with Cooper, who seems a little more angry and a little less sane every time Donna sees him.

Moira Queen stands by helplessly as the son she knew begins to disappear. She feels the happiness, the ethereal joy, that had so infected the Queen mansion fade away. She cries for her child (not out loud; never out loud) as he spends his last quarter of freshman year in a haze of alcohol.

Thea Queen is too young to understand what’s happening. She’s five and a half, and all she knows is that the girl who makes her brother smile isn’t doing so anymore. She doesn’t know why Felicity stops coming, but she can feel the hole the older girl leaves behind. There’s a hole in the Queen heiress, as well, after all; Felicity claims a part of everyone she meets. So Thea cries. She cries for her mother, who she can tell always wants to. She cries for her brother, who still does his best to love her, although without Felicity, there’s no love left inside him to give. She cries for Tommy, who is torn between his friends, ripped in two, and the ruthless dichotomy is taking its toll.

She cries for Felicity. She cries because, even as a child, she can tell that Felicity would never leave her brother.

Not if she had a choice.

  


XxX

  


Sophomore year is hell. Oliver and Laurel have…something. Neither will speak to what, exactly, it is or was, but by the end of the first quarter, they aren’t speaking. Tommy is torn yet again, this time in three different directions. He’s drifted from Felicity as well, though not as much as Oliver. By staying closer to her, he has been pulled away from his first best friend. And now, he is caught between Laurel, the girl he loves, and his best friend, who possibly dated and definitely slept with said girl he loves.

It’s as if the universe is out to break him.

It’s almost winter break when it happens. Tommy doesn’t show up to school that Thursday, which in and of itself, is not shocking or worrying. Both he and Oliver are chronically absent. It isn’t disturbing when he doesn’t come home that night (he’s adapted his best friend’s habit of making rounds of the cheerleading team). Even when he’s missing all day Friday, no one bats an eye.

But when Oliver calls him Saturday morning and reaches nothing but a recording, he begins to worry. Tommy has never shut him out before.

And then Oliver wanders into the living room near the entrance to the mansion, where his now nearly six-year-old sister has the TV on in the background as she struggles her way through a book, and he sees the report on the TV, and his blood turns to ice in his veins.

He only catches bits and pieces of the report, but it’s enough to make him feel like his heart has stopped. _Drunk driver. Hit and run. Tommy Merlyn. Hospital._

Oliver isn’t old enough to drive. That doesn’t stop him.

When he walks into the hospital, intent on using either his name or his money to find Tommy, he sees a familiar figure already standing at the information desk.

“I’m his best friend!” Felicity snaps. “You have to let me see him!” The guy working at the desk shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and to his credit, he does seem genuinely apologetic. “Family only. It’s a legal thing. I’d let you up if I could.”

“I think you can let her through,” Oliver announces, marching up to the counter. The guy, who can’t be more than five years older than them, looks over at the new arrival, and the blood drains from his face. Despite the fact that he clearly recognizes Oliver, the Queen heir continues. “I’m Oliver Queen. Tommy Merlyn is my best friend, and trust me, he wants to see us. Both of us.” The young man nods frantically and waves them past.

A year earlier, Oliver would have placed a hand on Felicity’s shoulder as they walked. She would have jokingly slapped at him for mocking her height (or lack thereof). He would have teased her. She would have laughed.

Things have changed.

“I didn’t need your help,” she snaps. Oliver rolls his eyes at her.

“Because arguing with him was getting you so far,” he growls back. Felicity stops and spins to face him. Oliver nearly stumbles into her.

“You know what?” she hisses. “Fuck. _You_.” She accentuates each word with a hard shove to his chest. “You are _so_ full of shit.”

“Me?” Oliver asks, refusing to back up, even as she stands far too close to him. “What did I do?”

“What did _I_ do?” she retorts. “You’re the one who spent the last year pretending we were never friends! You don’t just get to act like…like none of it ever happened!” Oliver finally takes a step back. He’s unsteady on his feet, unsteady in his soul, like his knees and heart have suddenly turned to Jell-O.

“I wasn’t…” he begins to protest, and then he realizes that he has been doing precisely that. He looks down, unable to meet her eyes. They’re burning, blue flames glowing around dilated pupils. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Felicity repeats. “And that, what, you think that’ll just make everything better?” Oliver shakes his head helplessly. “Because it doesn’t. You’re sorry now, but you weren’t sorry six months ago, when I needed you. Did you know my father came back to town?” He tries to respond, but she’s on a roll now and bulldozes right over his half-formed words. “Because he did. He came back this summer and spent three weeks trying to convince me to leave with him, and you know what? I almost did. I needed you then, I needed you to tell me to stay. And _you. Weren’t. There._ ” Oliver nods, swallowing. His throat is so dry the motion hurts.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he mumbles. His shame is burning its way up through his throat and face, the tips of his ears burning as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry.”

“You apologized already,” Felicity says back quietly, her voice no longer sharp and defensive, but tired. Just tired. Tired in the same way that Oliver feels, standing here, realizing how irrevocably he has messed up. Tired down to his bones, tired in the way that absorbs his being entirely, until his body, mind, and soul are no longer his, but belonging to the exhaustion that permeates his existence, and he hears that same weariness in his old best friend’s voice. “It doesn’t change anything.” Oliver nods shallowly. He can’t even look at her. She’s as heartbreakingly beautiful as she’s always been, and it only hurts more now that they’re nothing. Before, they were something, maybe something a little bit more than friends. And maybe dancing that line of _will we, won’t we_ and _almost_ burned. Maybe it was slowly pulling his soul from his body. But now, they are nothing. Now, he can’t even _look_ at her without feeling empty, hollowed out, like someone took a blunted knife and hacked out every last bit of life from inside of him. And maybe that’s kind of what happened, because Felicity had been the only good part of him, and now they’re nothing.

Now they’re gone.

“Tommy needs us,” Oliver says flatly, his voice just as empty as he feels. “We can talk about this later.” Felicity looks up at him through her choppily-cut, fading bangs and for a moment, Oliver swears he sees the heartbreak he’s feeling reflected in her eyes.

But then she shakes her head and whispers, “There’s nothing left to talk about,” and the moment is gone. “Come on,” she continues, louder, her voice stronger. “Let’s go see Tommy.”

  


XxX

  


Tommy ends up with a broken arm, cracked ribs, and a concussion. He complains, takes a few too many painkillers, and complains more. Three months later, he is almost back to how he was, save for a few tiny scars.

Not everything can be healed that easily.

Oliver wants to fix things now. The alcohol trance he’s practically lived in has faded rapidly, and the tunnel through his soul that it had been covering up is now all too painfully obvious. He feels like a ghost in his own skin, a specter haunting the halls of the mansion. But Felicity doesn’t give him the chance to. Her phone number has changed. They have no classes together. She disappears at lunch times, off to who knows where with Cooper and his friends.

So Oliver lets her go. Not that he has much of a choice. He stops looking for her in the crowd at assemblies. He stops seeking her out in the hallways. He consciously forces himself to forget where her locker is. He cuts her out of his life, as efficiently as she had cut him out of hers, and even though it feels like he’s removed his own soul, he doesn’t show it.

And then, again, everything changes.

Three weeks before the end of sophomore year, Oliver is playing with his now six-year old sister at nearly one in the morning (it’s a Saturday; Moira and Robert are out of town, and Raisa has learned to turn a blind eye), chasing her through the halls of the mansion. Thea is laughing uncontrollably by the time he catches her in the entrance hall, swooping her up off her feet and into his arms, tickling her lightly.

“Down!” the child, already small for her age, shouts. “Down, Ollie!” Oliver laughs and sets her back on her feet. They’re about to resume their game when he hears a slight, almost hesitant knock on the door. Oliver frowns slightly, looking up. “Ollie?” Thea asks, tugging on his pant leg. “Who is it?”

“Let’s go see,” Oliver announces, grinning down at his baby sister. Thea nods enthusiastically, her child’s mind registering the possibility of an adventure. The Queen heir strides purposefully over to the door, followed by the bouncing, smiling form of his sibling.

“ _Felicity_?” It is her. Her makeup is smeared, as if she’s been crying. She’s shivering, arms wrapped around herself, because Starling City is hardly a tropical paradise past midnight. It’s not just the cold, though; Oliver immediately notices the way his old friend’s entire body is trembling, from fear or grief or some other emotion that he can’t quite identify.

“I’m sorry,” she croaks, and the raw anguish in her voice makes it sound like her throat is filled with gravel. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Thea,” Oliver says quietly, keeping his eyes trained on Felicity. “I think Raisa is in the TV room. How about you go find her? She might have some cookies or something.” Thea is a precocious six-year-old, and she understands the dismissal for what it is, but she takes it in stride.

“Okay,” she agrees. She seems to hesitate for a moment, before bounding forward and wrapping her arms around Felicity’s legs in a rather vertically challenged attempt at a hug. “I hope you get happier, F’leecy.” The older girl lets out a strangled, half-laugh as she watches Thea run off into the mansion.

“I forgot she called me that,” Felicity mumbles. Oliver doesn’t say anything, simply reaching out and pulling her inside.

“Come on,” he murmurs, walking them into the living room near the entrance. He gently pushes her onto one of the couches and wraps a blanket around her. “I’ll make you some cocoa.” She nods vacantly, pulling her knees up to her chest and pulling the blanket tighter around herself.

“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?” Felicity questions when he returns with a mug. She takes it with a murmured thanks and grips it tightly with hands that are no longer shaking. Oliver sits down on the couch across from her and looks at her appraisingly.

“Do you want to tell me?” he asks. Felicity pauses in the middle of bringing the mug to her mouth.

“I can’t believe I missed this,” she murmurs. He looks at her in confusion. “You grew up when I wasn’t looking.” Oliver smiles a bit at that; a genuine smile of contentment, instead of the smirk he’s grown so used to wearing. “I broke up with Cooper,” she explains. Oliver just nods, not judging, not questioning, simply accepting. “I didn’t want to stop hanging out with you and Tommy, you know,” she says suddenly, breaking a long moment of quiet.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he corrects. “I shut you out. I’m the one to blame.” Felicity shakes her head.

“It was me, too,” she argues. “I changed my number. I stopped calling.” She takes a deep breath, gathering her scattered emotions. “I didn’t want to, though,” she reiterates. “It…it was Cooper. He–he said that I was too close to you. Said I was basically cheating on him.” She takes another deep breath, shakier this time, and she looks so small and scared and _broken_ that all of a sudden, it doesn’t matter what happened between them anymore. Oliver pushes himself to his feet, walks over to the couch Felicity is curled up on, and gently tugs her into his arms. It feels as natural as it always has; her head is tucked under his chin; his arms are completely wrapped around her. She’s crying again, Oliver realizes somewhere in the back of his mind. He holds her a little tighter for it.

“He thought you were in love with me,” she mumbles into his collarbone, some indeterminable amount of time later, when her tears have dried and she’s cuddled into him out of desire for warmth instead of comfort. “How crazy is that?” Oliver says nothing, but the way his arms grow tense around her and his jaw clenches says everything for him. “Oliver?” Felicity asks, her voice filled with trepidation. Still, Oliver says nothing. “Oh, God,” she mumbles, pulling back. “You are, aren’t you?” Silence. “Please, just tell me you aren’t.” That finally gets the Queen heir to speak.

“Don’t ask me to say that I don’t love you,” he finally murmurs. Felicity shakes her head slowly, staring at him, mouth slightly open in shock. Oliver looks at her, the weight of his feelings, the ones that he’s been carrying for years, finally off his chest (if in a roundabout way), and he realizes that for once in his life, he isn’t scared. Maybe this is the end, the _real_ end, of his and Felicity’s friendship. Maybe it’s the beginning of the rest of their lives. Maybe it won’t change anything. But it doesn’t matter to him, in this moment.

Because she knows. _She knows_. And she isn’t running away.

“No, no, no,” Felicity babbles. “No, no no no, no! You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to just–I came here for comfort and–and–and cocoa and not a _confession_! I can’t–“ She shakes her head so rapidly that it’s a bit worrying. “I can’t deal with this right now,” she finishes. “I just–not right now. After Cooper…maybe not ever.”

“Felicity,” Oliver interrupts gently. He reaches out hesitantly, suddenly all too aware of the proper boundaries of a platonic relationship (which they’ve never exactly followed before). Still, she allows him to softly grip her free hand. “I’m not saying this because I expect something from you. You don’t have to say anything. I’m just _so tired_ of lying to you.”

“How long?” Felicity asks. Her face is oddly blank, and it disturbs Oliver more than a little that he can no longer read his best friend’s emotions. “How long have you…” she trails off. Oliver gets an intense look on his face, all wide eyes and half-smile.

“Always,” he answers, and the half-smile becomes a full smile. “The whole time, from the minute I saw you the first day of kindergarten.” Felicity leans back into the couch, draining the last of her cocoa absently.

“That’s…” she shakes her head and sets her mug on the coffee table. “That’s a lot, Oliver.” He nods.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, reaching out and gently pressing a kiss to her forehead before hugging her again. And with Oliver saying it, Felicity almost believes it.

“I’m tired,” she mumbles into his shoulder after a moment. Wordlessly, Oliver stands, pulling his friend into his arms bridal style. She squeaks and smacks his chest. “Some warning next time would be nice!” she chastises, and it just feels so _right_ , so much like old times, the bickering and teasing, that Oliver can’t stop a ridiculous grin from spreading over his face.

“You said you were tired,” he informs her as he starts climbing the stairs, effortlessly carrying her. “You can walk if you want.” She immediately stops squirming.

“No,” she decides. “This…this is nice.” To Oliver, it sounds like she’s talking about a lot more than the position they’re currently in.

“Tommy’s room is empty,” he says when they reach the hall the three friends had stayed in every weekend for so long, referring to the bedroom conjoined with his. “Yours is too.” Felicity hesitates for a moment.

“Can I…” She clears her throat. “Can I stay in yours?” The words are rushed, and Oliver would have a hard time understanding her if he hadn’t had years of practice.

“Yeah, of course,” he agrees. “I can take Tommy’s.”

“No!” she says, and he stumbles slightly in surprise at the force of her disagreement. “Can you stay with me?” Oliver stops in front of his open bedroom door and looks down at the girl in his arms. She’s curled up against him as best she can, hands loosely twisted in the fabric of his t-shirt. She looks scared, and she’s staring up at him with wide, pleading eyes, and Oliver was never any good at saying no to her, anyway.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, carrying her through his door. “I’ll stay.”

“Is this weird?” Felicity asks later, as they’re lying in Oliver’s bed. She’s lying on her side, he on his back, and he’s pretty sure that at their current distance, what they’re doing qualifies as cuddling. She has one hand resting on his chest (which is bare; he never wears shirts to bed and doesn’t intend to start, regardless of who else is in said bed with him) and his arm is wrapped around her.

“We’re estranged childhood friends,” he starts. “You just broke up with your boyfriend, I confessed to you, and now we’re cuddling in my bed.”

“Weird,” Felicity summarizes. “Definitely weird.”

“I don’t think _weird_ really covers it,” he quips, and all of a sudden they’re laughing. Just laughing. And Felicity is doing that thing where she smiles with her eyes, and she’s so warm and he’s so unbelievably in love with her, and Oliver thinks that this might rank above Thea’s birth for the happiest moment of his life.

  


XxX

  


It took Oliver and Felicity thirteen years to get as close as they were the first time around. It took a year and a half to break them. It only makes sense that it takes some time for them to heal.

It starts with small things. They go out for coffee after school a few times a week until the end of the year. Occasionally Tommy joins them, although he’s too caught up with Laurel to make it every time, and the rift between Tommy and Felicity isn’t nearly as deep as between Oliver and Felicity. Felicity even comes over the weekend before finals, under the guise of studying, though in reality, they simply lie on the roof outside Oliver’s bedroom window and talk. They’ve both missed a lot in the past year and a half, after all.

Felicity starts seeing a therapist. She doesn’t talk about Cooper much, at least not to Oliver, but he doesn’t mind. He pays for his friend’s sessions (she doesn’t know, of course; he pays Donna back every time he gets the chance. It’s the least he can do, in his mind) and comforts himself with the way she smiles a little bit more every day.

“You’re helping me dye my hair,” Felicity announces as she strides through his bedroom door one afternoon, about a week after the end of sophomore year. Oliver looks up from his laptop and reflexively smiles at the sound of her voice. She’s taken to wearing glasses, instead of contacts, this past month, and her makeup has taken a turn for the decidedly less dramatic.

“I am?” Oliver asks, but he’s already closing his laptop and getting to his feet. Felicity holds up a plastic bag with a drugstore logo on it.

“Yes, you are,” she confirms. “Blonde.” Oliver blinks in surprise at that.

“Blonde,” he echoes. “That’s…different.” Felicity arches an eyebrow at him.

“Problem?” she asks. Oliver shakes his head quickly and follows her into the bathroom, where she sets her glasses aside and hands him a box of hair dye.

“Not at all,” he reassures her. “I think it’ll look good.” It goes well, until…

“That’s my fricking eye!” Felicity shouts, shoving Oliver away and clapping a hand over her face.

“Sorry!” Oliver half-shouts back. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, oh _shit_.” He grabs a towel, soaking it and handing it to her. She presses it against her face. They stand there in silence for a moment as she carefully cleans out her eyes. And then Oliver sees tears leaking out of her uninjured eye.

“Hey,” he murmurs, reaching out gently wiping them away. “What’s wrong?” She shakes her head.

“It’s nothing,” she whispers and pushes his hand away. “It’s just…I’m getting rid of him. Cooper, I mean. I’m getting rid of everything he changed about me. And I don’t know why I’m crying, I don’t miss him, it just feels weird. It’s like I’m erasing an entire chapter of my life.” Oliver nods and takes her free hand in his, saying nothing. Words have become an unnecessary accessory between them. Felicity drops the towel, revealing an alarmingly red, swollen eye, and dashes her tears with the backs of her hands.

“That’s the last time,” she declares. “I’m done crying for him. He isn’t worth it anymore.” That makes Oliver smile. He lifts the hand still holding Felicity’s and presses a gentle kiss to the back of it.

“I’m glad,” he says quietly. Felicity smiles back at him, soft and hesitantly. They sit in silence, simply looking at each other, until the timer they had set for the hair dye goes off, making them both jump.

They both decide that a blonde Felicity Smoak is their new favorite Felicity Smoak.

  


XxX

  


The summer between sophomore and junior year is a strange one. While Oliver and Felicity have sorted out their argument, the air between them is tense, charged with unspoken emotion. It makes everyone around them…uncomfortable. Tommy takes the opportunity to avoid the awkwardness by spending as much time as possible with Laurel. Oliver isn’t sure what game they’re playing, but he’s sure it won’t end well for his best friend.

The weekend tradition is revived, but more often than not, it’s just Oliver and Felicity, and almost always, it’s at the latter’s apartment, instead of the mansion. Oliver feels bad for abandoning his sister to the boredom of a long, lonely summer, but that feeling is vastly overwhelmed by the sheer, unadulterated joy he gets just from being around the blonde. He stops partying entirely; he has no need for alcohol anymore. He has nothing to forget and no one to miss.

Everything is finally back to how it should be.

Junior year passes in a blissful haze. Felicity scores perfectly on every standardized test she’s given, of course. Oliver does not. Tommy and Laurel continue dancing around each other. The only truly memorable event is when Laurel’s sister, Sara, is shipped off to boarding school a week into her freshman year, the result of a failed convenience store robbery and having a detective for a father.

Felicity and Oliver don’t talk about his feelings. They don’t talk about her therapy. They don’t talk about a lot of things, but they don’t really need to.

And then senior year begins, and Felicity realizes that she’s running out of time.

“Oliver?” she asks quietly, one night in the summer, when they’ve climbed the fire escape to the roof of Felicity’s apartment building and jumped across the gap to the next building over (Oliver isn’t scared of falling, and when he’s holding her hand, Felicity isn’t either). The almost-man in question hums in acknowledgement, waiting for his best friend to speak. She looks over at him, kicking her feet where they’re dangling off the side of the roof. “Why…why are we waiting?” Oliver gives her a hesitant half-smile.

“Waiting?” he questions. She nods, licking her lips nervously.

“Yeah,” she continues. Her voice is shaking, with nerves or excitement or both, Oliver can’t quite tell. “Waiting. For…you know…” She makes a vague gesture between them. “Us.” Oliver lifts his feet up, climbing back all the way on to the roof and standing. He has the feeling that he’ll need solid ground under his feet for this conversation.

“That depends,” he tells her quietly, voice almost drowning in the rush of traffic, six stories beneath them. “Do you want there to be an us?” Felicity looks up at him sharply.

“Of course,” she confirms. “I thought that was obvious.” Oliver laughs softly.

“That’s why you’re the smart one,” he jokes, and they smile wordlessly at each other for a moment before his eyes grow serious once more. “Once we cross that line, we can’t go back,” he warns her. “I don’t want to lose you.” Felicity nods and holds out a hand, silently asking for his help to her feet. He takes it immediately, as he always does.

“We crossed that line a long time ago,” she whispers, nervously adjusting her glasses. There’s less than a foot separating them now. “Do you _want_ to go back?” Oliver shakes his head.

“Never,” he murmurs. “But if we don’t make it–if we mess this up–“ Felicity cuts him off, resting her fingertips on his chest and rendering him speechless.

“Let’s make sure we make it, then,” she tells him. “Sound good?” He nods.

Oliver, for all of his bravery in telling her the truth, in everything he has done in his life, cannot muster up the courage to kiss her. So, as she has always done, she makes up for what he lacks.

She kisses him first.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment any scene you'd like me to expand on/any new scene in this 'verse you'd like to read and I'll happily write it for you. Nyssara fic in this 'verse coming (hopefully) soon! Find me on tumblr @daisys-quake.


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